Study Findings Aren't What One Would Expect (But Don't Get Any Ideas)

This article at http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2735562&page=1 , Alcohol May Be Protective from Head Injury, caught my eye over the holidays as I thougt about the safety of friends and family in their respected celebrations. The findings in the article were very different than I expected.
Apparently, patients suffering from head trauma had lower mortality rate than patients with no alcohol in their system. The study deals with statistics classifying individuals into three classes with no BAC, some BAC, and high BAC. The patients with high BAC had a higher mortality rate, and the differences between some and no BAC was 27.9% versus 36.3% respectively. Researchers believe that the effects of the alcohol may deal with the secondary brain injury and the body’s reaction to the trauma.
I tried to look for the complete report, but didn’t have a subscription to the journal. I did find the abstract and another article about the findings. Initially, the findings seemed a little hard to believe, but, when one considers that the presence of mild alcohol doesn’t stop initial brain trauma, it doesn't seem as hard to understand. Still, I would like to know what exactly the alcohol does to the brain to have such an effect on secondary trauma. The actual article was “Association between Alcohol and Mortality in Patients with Severe Traumatic Head Injury” published in Archives of Surgery.

Websites:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2735562&page=1
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=59405

Abstract
http://archsurg.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/141/12/1185